High standard set for Accounting Olympiad

ABOUT 140 pupils competed against each other for top positions – and top-tech prizes – in the final round of the Eastern Cape's first Accounting Olympiad for Grade 11s, jointly run by Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University's School of Accounting and professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Joint first prize winners were Collegiate High's Raheema Adam and Westville Senior Secondary's Hackeem Hafkey, who each won an Apple Mini iPad.

In joint second place were Westering High's Mary-Anne O'Connel and Ethembeni Enrichment Centre's Khanya Fasi, each taking home a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4. Joint third prize winners were Alexander Road High's Carlos Fernandes and Ethembeni's Inga Ntakase, who won R1500 gift vouchers from Greenacres Shopping Centre.

PwC partner Ash Rathan said the aim of the competition was twofold, "to attract the cream of the crop [to the accounting profession]" and to retain talent in the Eastern Cape, by encouraging the city's top pupils to make NMMU their first-choice university.

Congratulating the pupils, School of Accounting director Prof Frans Prinsloo said: "You need to be commended for wanting to test yourself, to measure your own knowledge and understanding, and for wanting to measure yourself against your peers ... measuring yourself against others is important if you want to improve yourself."

NMMU accounting lecturer and Olympiad organiser Ansulene Prinsloo was "very impressed" with the pupils' marks, as the second and final round paper had been set at a very high standard. The first round was completed by 245 pupils from 36 schools.

NMMU set both papers.

Prinsloo encouraged the pupils to work hard in their Grade 11 final exams.

"These are the marks you will submit when applying for varsity. They are really, really important.

"If you don't get high enough APS [admission point score] marks, you're not going to get into the programme you want to study at university."

Speakers at the prize-giving included several BCom (accounting) first-year students who are recipients of NMMU's Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship – awarded to academically performing matrics and totalling R75000-plus for each year of their degrees, provided they maintain first-class passes.

One of these was Matthew Walker, the Eastern Cape's top matriculant last year, who encouraged the pupils to work hard: "There's no point in aiming for 80% and only putting in 20%."

Brandwag High Grade 11 pupil Demi Oliphant, 17, said the Olympiad had been "a challenge, but [was] quite invigorating". Her classmate, Caro Swanepoel, 17, agreed, saying: "I'm grateful for the opportunity."

Both found the section on tax the most challenging, as they hadn't yet completed this section at school. "We're a step ahead of the rest of our class," said Oliphant.

Muir College's Yash Panchal, 18, who aspires to be a cardiac surgeon, said he enjoyed the Olympiad. "It wasn't too challenging."

Uitenhage High's Nishaat Abdollatief said the Olympiad had given her "better insight" into accounting.

The competition will be run annually. - Nicky Willemse